After his university in Scotland was closed in the spring because of the coronavirus, forcing him to study online at home, Jack Boag kept his spirits dreaming of what awaited him in the next academic year: a semester abroad at the University of Amsterdam.
But his hopes of participating in the European Union-wide student exchange program known as Erasmus were dashed last week after Britain and Europe finally reached a Brexit deal. As part of the announcement, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Britain would withdraw from Erasmus, citing its high costs.
“For me, Erasmus was the most direct benefit of European cooperation,” said Boag, a 20-year history and international relations student at the University of Aberdeen. “This is over.”
For many young people in Britain, the decision to withdraw from Erasmus is just the latest step in a constant erosion of such possibilities since the country voted in 2016 to leave the European Union. Formerly able to study and work anywhere in the European Union without a visa, young British people will now be treated like people from any other country outside the bloc when it comes to applying for educational programs – or jobs.
The withdrawal is also a blow to British universities, a powerful symbol of their soft power in Europe and around the world, and an important source of income for the country. Britain remains second only to the United States as a destination for international students, but leaving Erasmus may dissuade many EU students who could have used the program as a path to British education.
While this may not affect renowned institutions like Oxford or Cambridge, many lesser-known universities can suffer a blow.
Many young people and academics expected Britain to remain part of Erasmus under a status that allows non-member countries like Turkey and Norway to participate. Johnson said in January that there was “no threat to the Erasmus scheme.
So his announcement on Thursday generated shock waves at universities, angered diplomats and angered British students and professors who benefited from the program.
“There will be a relative loss of revenue for British universities, but from a diplomatic and ambassadorial point of view, the loss is priceless,” said Seán Hand, the vice president in charge of Europe at the University of Warwick, the second largest source of Erasmus students of Great Britain.
Britain’s departure from Erasmus, one of the European Union’s most popular programs, may be one of the strongest signs of her divorce from the bloc, a clear sign of her vision for her future relationship with her former partners.
“Erasmus opens people’s horizons and expands their view of the world,” said John O’Brennan, professor of European studies at the University of Maynooth, Ireland, where he leads an Erasmus-funded European integration program. “If this is not the embodiment of the European ideal, I don’t know what it is.”
While exchanges are still possible between British and European universities through bilateral agreements, British students will not benefit from the monthly scholarships provided by Erasmus, now officially known as Erasmus +. It will also be more difficult for academics and teachers to train or teach abroad.
Students and academics who secured funds before the Brexit transition period ends on December 31 will be able to go abroad by the end of the 2021-22 academic year, according to Universities UK, a group representative of the country’s academic institutions.
Since its introduction in 1987, Erasmus has sent millions of people abroad for exchanges of studies, jobs or internships. About 200,000 students participate in the program each year. Former students often speak fondly of the experience, which they consider the most tangible form of European integration: a way to discover new cultures, study other languages and make connections for life.
“Erasmus is not only the student exchange program for which it is known, it is also embedded in the way the European Union thinks about tackling unemployment and mobility,” said Paul James Cardwell, a law professor at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow who participated program in the 1990s.
In Britain, half of the students who study abroad do so through Erasmus. For many, it has shaped personal paths and provided an affordable way to feel connected to the European continent.
Ben Munster, a 25-year-old British freelance writer who studied in Italy in 2015 and has since moved to Rome, called Erasmus “the purest and most vivid expression of Schengen’s dream”, referring to the passport-free travel zone of European Union .
Natalia Barbour, a 22-year-old international communication student at the University of Glasgow who studied in Amsterdam for a semester, said she wanted to participate since high school. “It makes the experience at the university more exciting,” she said.
“Everyone benefits from this, including teachers,” said Mark Berry, professor of music history at London’s Royal Holloway University, who taught in the Netherlands through Erasmus in 2015. “I wish I could have done more of this when it was still possible. “
In 2019, Britain received more than 30,000 students and trainees through the program.
“Many students come to Britain and come home with a positive experience,” said Cardwell, a professor at the University of Strathclyde. “It is a very strong aspect of Britain’s soft power.”
British lawmakers who supported staying in the program wrote in a report last year that the exclusion option would disproportionately affect people from disadvantaged backgrounds and those with medical needs or disabilities.
They also warned that it would be difficult to replace him.
In the current Erasmus + program for 2014-20, Britain contributed about 1.8 billion euros, or $ 2.2 billion, and received € 1 billion, according to the Department of Education.
Mr Johnson said last week that a program named after mathematician Alan Turing would replace Erasmus + and would allow students to “go to the best universities in the world”. Starting in September 2021, it will provide funding for some 35,000 students to study abroad, at an annual cost of £ 100 million. British professors and students from foreign universities would not be eligible for the program.
Britain, however, will still receive funding from the European Union’s research and innovation program, Horizon 2020, of which it is the second largest beneficiary.
UK universities welcomed the Turing program, but other experts considered the movement shortsighted.
“This will be felt in 20 years,” said O’Brennan of the University of Maynooth. “Britain has miscalculated what it receives from this program.”
Many universities said they would maintain close ties with Europe.
“European universities do not want the link to be broken, for them it is very important that their students continue to come to Britain,” said Hand, from the University of Warwick.
For British alumni in the program, the end of Erasmus marked the end of an era – an era when they could not only study abroad easily, but also travel around Spain, learn to ski in Austria or dance at a festival in Denmark.
“This is what Erasmus is about: he taught me to enjoy wine and cheese, how to set aside time to socialize over hour lunches,” said Katy Jones, 28, who went to France as an Erasmus student and runs an English course in Lyon.
Boag, the Aberdeen student, who is in the third year of a four-year program, said he hoped to enroll in graduate programs in continental Europe, but that he was concerned about additional obstacles that have not yet been cleared up.
“For Erasmus and so many other things, Brexit is a Pandora’s box,” he said. “We don’t know what’s inside yet, because we just opened it.”